Spending a relaxing day at the lake is an ideal spot for many Minnesotans, and that is exactly where Derald Madden was when The Land caught up with him on Father’s Day. While he was relaxing at Lake Shetek on June 21, the farm has indeed kept Madden one busy guy.
In the past few weeks, “all together it rained 1 3/4 inches,” he said; it has been “drizzly and overcast for the last couple weeks.” While that slowed the spraying for him, he and his son Shaun managed to get the beets and corn all sprayed. He said beets canopied on June 18 and corn canopied on June 19.
“Beets are a little ahead of schedule,” he said. With seven years of growing beets, this is the “earliest I have seen it.” While beets are ahead, “beans are just a tad bit behind. ... I think they (beets) like the cooler days. ... We got nice moisture. We even got a touch of hail on Wednesday (June 17),” but thankfully no damage to the crop.
As for weeds, Madden believes you need to “catch ’em fast and early.” He was not as concerned about getting the beans done, however, because they are not canopied yet.
Derald and Shaun plan on getting all the remaining beans sprayed this week. They will start putting fungicide down on the beets around July 4. Once that is done comes the preparations for the fall harvest.
Madden likes to get the combines out and checked to make sure all is set for the fall. Doing those things now gives Madden the assurance that when the combines need to roll out for harvest they are ready to go.
“We are sitting as nice as we can ask for, for this given time,” he said. The warmer days forecasted will only help his crop continue to grow and hopefully keep this a “pretty uneventful season.”
Uneventful can be a great thing in farming.
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From the Fields: Beets ahead, beans behind schedule
<i>Originally published in the June 26, 2009, print edition.</i>
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